


Please Don't Love Me

by sarahandthegraveyardshift



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, poor Aziraphale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 11:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahandthegraveyardshift/pseuds/sarahandthegraveyardshift
Summary: “Angel, I love you. I'll die here, now, if it means proving it. I will.”[You've fallen for the oldest temptation in the book.]





	Please Don't Love Me

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, hello!! My goodness, you're here! Look at you, you lovely thing! I'm so happy you've dropped by!
> 
> Are you having a good day? I hope so!
> 
> Is there anything I can do to make it better? 
> 
> Some Aziraphale and Crowley hurt/comfort, mayhaps? 
> 
> :D

“I love you,” Crowley whimpered. Begged. Pleaded. “Aziraphale, I love you. I—”

“Enough,” Gabriel spat, nose wrinkled in disgust. 

Crowley was on his knees in the middle of the bookshop, a binding sigil etched into the wooden floor beneath him. His sunglasses lay a few feet away in pieces, shattered under the archangel's foot at some point. 

“Release him, Gabriel, for Mother's sake!” Aziraphale stood at the edge of the sigil. He was helpless to cross the lines and reach his beloved. His only. His soulmate. 

Angels didn't have souls. 

Neither did demons. 

So it was told. 

But Aziraphale knew beyond any fraction of a doubt that in the wide, wide universe that Crowley had helped splatter with galaxies, there was not a single being that fit him so splendidly. Not a pair of eyes he would rather drift endlessly in. Not a set of lips he would rather taste over and over and over...

“It's a demon, Aziraphale,” Gabriel reasoned, voice cold and wretched as he breathed against the Principality's ear. “It can't _feel_ anything, let alone love anyone. You've fallen for the oldest temptation in the book.”

If only Gabriel knew how literal his words were. Aziraphale had gone head over heels for the trickster serpent. The angel couldn't see what was so wrong with that—love was love. It's what angels were meant for, wasn't it?

“It's not true,” Crowley said with a desperate shake of his head, voice strained. He was in pain. Aziraphale recognized the sigil—it was meant to discorporate. Slowly. Slowly. 

_Slowly._

“Aziraphale, angel,” the demon gasped. His eyes shone with tears. His chin trembled. His body shook. And shook. And shook. “Don't listen. Not a word. He's lying.”

“Angels don't lie,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly, pacing to Aziraphale's other side. “Every word out of this snake's mouth is meant to deceive. All the pretty things it's whispered to you in the dark...” The angel's breath hitched. “...have just been to take advantage of you.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes tight and covered his face, hot tears searing his cheeks.

_Not true._

_Not true._

_Not true._

“Angel,” Crowley whispered, breaths staccato-ed and labored. There was red on his tongue. “Angel, I love you. I'll die here, now, if it means proving it. I will.”

“Get on with it, then,” Gabriel demanded impatiently. “No one's going to mourn one less demon in the world.”

Aziraphale would. He would mourn to the ends of eternity. He would mourn until the great bird traveled to the mountain at the end of the universe, sharpened its beak, and returned, only to do it all again.

“Stop,” he cried, falling to his knees and straining against the lines he couldn't cross. So few feet lay between them, and yet he couldn't reach his lovely, wonderful, beautiful demon. “Crowley...Stop.”

Crowley's eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What?”

“Put an end to this. You must stop, Crowley. Just...Don't. Don't love me.” Aziraphale's corporeal heart ached at the anguish that crossed Crowley's face. But he had to stop this. He had to save his demon, even if it meant tearing his soul in two. “You told me once...You could never deny me anything. So do this for me, this one thing. Please, my dear. Don't love me.”

Blood dribbled from the corner of the demon's mouth as he stared with unseeing eyes, and then he...smiled. So, so serenely. “My love,” Crowley choked, tears falling and falling and falling. “My angel, that is one thing...I cannot do. I refuse.” His skin turned ashen. The red in his hair dulled. His eyes...His extraordinary eyes became like glass.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale screamed, fists banging against the unseen barrier. “Crowley, no! You can't! You mustn't! Please!”

“I love...I love y—” Crowley's being disintegrated into embers, sparkling dust, a swirling cluster of dying stars. 

He was gone. 

0 o 0 o 0

Aziraphale woke with a shout. “Crowley!” 

He breathed and searched the darkness desperately. His fingers stretched and reached, twining with nothing but air, and he cried out in agony. 

“Angel?” a soft, sleep-laced voice rasped beside him, and Aziraphale startled violently. A dim light spread through the darkness from an unknown source, Crowley's worried, frowning face coming into focus. “Whass wrong?” 

“Crowley,” the angel breathed, tears starting anew as his trembling fingers ghosted over the other's form, too afraid to touch for fear of this being a dream. A trick. A temptation. “Oh, Crowley. Oh, dear, are you...are you really...”

The demon, for his part, seemed to understand through the confusion what Aziraphale needed, and he gently took the angel's hand in his own, pressing it to his cheek and nuzzling into it for good measure. “I'm here, Aziraphale. I'm right here.”

Aziraphale didn't hesitate after that, throwing himself into Crowley's arms and sobbing into his bare shoulder. Crowley waited patiently for the angel to calm himself, murmuring soothing words in his ear while nimble fingers pressed in just the right places along his spine. 

When Aziraphale finally pulled away, just enough so that they could look at one another, Crowley ran a hand through the angel's hair and wiped the tears from his face. “Was it a nightmare?”

Aziraphale sniffed and swallowed audibly. “I...I don't know. I've never had a nightmare before.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Aziraphale didn't. At least, that's what he told himself. But the moment he opened his mouth to say so, the hellish dream bubbled past his lips in a jumble of choked whimpers and half-formed sentences. Crowley pieced together what he could, pursing his lips to keep from interrupting before the other was finished.

And when he was, Crowley pulled his angel into his arms again and held him tightly. “I'm sorry, my love. I'm so sorry you had to experience that.”

Aziraphale sighed in relief. 

No _It was just a dream, why are you so upset?_

No _That's a stupid thing to be worried about._

Just acceptance and solace and love. 

Most of all love. 

Crowley lay them back on the bed facing one another, fingers stroking Aziraphale's hair over and over as they stared into each other's eyes. Time was a silly thing to immortals; even more silly to an angel and a demon who had known each other for more than six millennia. But time stretched around them now like a blanket. And it felt like another six millennia before the sun's rays peeked into their bedroom. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, voice hoarse from crying. He placed a hand on the demon's chest, reveling in the heartbeat that was unnecessary but comforting all the same. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, angel,” the demon said softly, afraid to break the hush that had fallen over them. 

“Don't.” Aziraphale closed his eyes, swallowing hard on the lump in his throat. Crowley held his breath. “Please don't stop loving me.”

The demon smiled and shifted closer to his angel, lips brushing the other's as their breath mingled. “Never,” he promised. “I will never stop loving you.”

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who hasn't read the book, the bird traveling to the mountain to sharpen its beak is a reference from a particular scene where Crowley is drunkenly trying to describe to Aziraphale how long eternity is (and how long he'll have to be subjected to The Sound of Music). It's wonderfully hilarious.
> 
> You are amazing! Thank you for being here! :D
> 
> Have a lovely day, friend!


End file.
